kanesrealm

Donald Trump wants to change the tax code and accomplish something that so far has eluded him, a legislative victory. Our tax code absolutely needs serious reform but preliminary indicators suggest that's not what this is. Trump insists that the rich, including himself, will not benefit from the changes he and the Republicans are proposing. So we begin with a lie, how then do we trust anything else in the legislation? The old drum is once again beating it's favorite tune, the elimination of the estate tax. Currently for an individual the first 5.49 million dollars is exempted from this tax which means for most people this is never a factor. The argument for repeal of the estate tax has always been about the family farm and small business owners, it is a false argument. There are no real small businesses or family farms worth more than the exempted amount. Let's, just for the hell of it, act like it's true. The tax, which is 40%, doesn't kick in until after the exem...

When Colin Kaepernick first chose to kneel during the singing of the National Anthem, as opposed to standing, many lost their minds. He began this now wider NFL player supported gesture to protest police brutality of African-Americans and an imbalance in our criminal justice system. A peaceful protest and silent statement. So, what's the problem? President Trump has decided to go to war with the NFL and more specifically the players who are participating in this, calling them S.O.B.s and saying they should be fired. His outrage is very easy to understand, he's doing what he does best, changing the subject from major issues while keeping himself at the center of attention. In the movie, "Best Little Whorehouse in Texas" the governor is portrayed by the talented Charles Durning, who epitomizes the politician that loves attention but hates to do his job and tackle tough issues. In one scene Durning sings a delightful tune that goes, "oooh I love to dance a little s...

Well isn't this sweeter than Grandma's peach pie! At least six Whitehouse advisors, Federal government employees all, including Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump and Steve Bannon used their private emails to conduct official business. Do you suppose the Trump supporters at his rallies will start chanting LOCK THEM UP? They sure loved saying it about Hillary Clinton throughout his campaign and are continuing to do so, all at the urging and to the delight of Donald Trump. Will he silence that rhetoric now? Of course not, he wouldn't dare interrupt the mad rantings of his loyalists, he can't afford to. Like Victor Frankenstein, he cannot control his creation. So what to do? Trump will simply ignore it, call it fake news, say there's no comparison and tell his fans to just trust him, he and he alone is their saviour and can do no wrong and since he can do no wrong, neither can his minions. Rience Priebus, the now fallen Chief of Staff, knew this was going on and tried to ...

Puerto Ricans are American citizens, got it? They have been since 1898 and if you don't know that, shame on you. Now to you Mr. President, you are not doing a good job on the human catastrophe unfolding on the island of Puerto Rico, stop patting yourself on the back and mobilize the military. Stop saying ignorant things like, "you know Puerto Rico's an island, it's in the ocean a big ocean you can't drive your truck there". No kidding. That's what ships, planes and helicopters are for. You offered not a word of sympathy to the 3.4 million Americans facing death on that island. Only after you were hounded did you tweet out an attack on Puerto Rico's infrastructure and debt problems. Do you even know Puerto Rico is a part of the United States? You should, you've done business there. Seven days in to this horrific situation and we are still not taking the actions necessary. There are FEMA workers there who have been held up by red tape waiting for t...

I am returning to blogging. No, you're right, an explanation isn't required but I'm going to give you one. I tried, I really tried, but engaging in political dialogue on Facebook is pointless. When I reactivated my account I chose not to launch political statements from my homepage but I did try participating in other threads. In written dialogue, one person puts down their thoughts, the next person reads that person's thoughts, digests them and then responds directly on point, right? Not on Facebook. With only a few exceptions, I have found that what I write isn't being read, based upon the responses I often received which have nothing to do with what I said. My problem appears to be that I actually read what people write and respond to their words and that's not how it works. It's just random thoughts and in the case of active thread presenters, their main interest seems to be basking only in their own glory, which is fine but don't invite commenting ...

You probably have noticed that I've been silent for over three months. Frankly, I'm disgusted by the political landscape of America. The fish rots from the head down and our head is Donald Trump. In a few days we will celebrate our independence as a nation. We are 241 years old. At the beginning of any great experiment there is the good, bad and ugly. Haven't we had enough of the bad and ugly? Our failure in the area of medical care is disgraceful. Many efforts in modern America dating back to President Harry Truman have tried and failed to address this issue, with the exception of Medicare which passed in 1965 under Lyndon B. Johnson, it was passed because he was a master of the legislative process and because enough Americans finally recognized that it was immoral to look the other way at the plight of elderly citizens. The program works and works very well, in spite of those forces who have attacked it non stop since it's passage and continue to do so. The majorit...

There's an elephant in the room. No it's not the Republicans or the pistachio elephant. I have returned to Facebook. To those who have noticed this I applaud your alertness. For those considering a rebuke and feeding me my own words, I must disclose that I have often eaten my own words and they are delicious. It would be disingenuous of me to disavow anything I have written about Facebook, to the contrary, I stand by every word I have written about that platform. A blog is a snapshot of thoughts in the moment and I only make adjustments when I get a fact wrong or a situation has evolved to unveil new facts. I never alter the original post, I acknowledge the mistake and set the record straight. There are no mistakes to correct on what I've written about Facebook. However, the break I took gave me an opportunity to reflect and conclude that my expectations of Facebook were too high. It can provide a sliver of engagement and pleasure if approached with a narrow lens and a di...

Milo Yiannopoulos, now that's a mouthful. That's not an oral sex joke. Okay, it was an oral sex joke, aren't I outrageous? No? You're right of course, I'm very boring compared to Milo. Like Cher or Prince, you only need to say one name, Milo. I freely and proudly admit that up until about a year and a half ago I really didn't know who Milo was. His name and contribution to public dialogue was on my periphery. So I did a little research to see what all the chatter was about. A young gay guy from Britain with Greek heritage who's political opinions are slightly to the right of Attila the Hung, I mean Hun. That phrase to the right of Attila the Hun, is that really accurate, I can't see how. Milo is a self described provocateur and champion of free speech. He debated Boy George on British Television over gay marriage. Milo was opposed at that time and yes he was an out gay man. At the time he wrote for a Catholic newspaper, yeah I know, go with it. He did s...

Today is International Pipe Smoking Day. It's also a Federal holiday here in the U.S. for something else...I choose to ignore that and celebrate I.P.S.D. I hope you're celebrating with a fine pipe and your favorite tobacco, letting your troubles waft on high to better places. There's nothing more enjoyable than to sit back, gently put fire to the great leaf and think of nothing else but sublime billowing clouds of joy. Take unto thyself a hobby and find peace of mind. I don't remember who said that but I agree and pipe smoking is one of mine. Have a wonderful I.P.S.D. and stay smokey!

President Trump says his Administration is running like a finely tuned machine, not at all chaotic like the evil minions of the media are reporting. Trump is right, if your definition of a finely tuned machine is one that is spewing oil, springs popping off, gears locking up and billows of smoke filling the air. We learned this evening that Trump's pick to replace Mike Flynn as National Security Adviser, Vice-Admiral Harwood, turned down the offer. The lying media cites Harwood as being conflicted between the call of duty and the chaos surrounding National Security matters in the Trump Administration. Trump and company have of course cited other reasons, namely financial and personal. I'm sure that's it. We have also learned, through the evil minions, that apparently Flynn lied to the F.B.I. on January 24, 2017 about speaking to the Russian Ambassador about sanctions. Lying to the F.B.I. is a felony and if prosecuted and found guilty serious jail time can follow. Today ...

I am really sick of politics...so here's some more. President Trump held a news conference today which lasted seventy-seven minutes. That length is somewhat rare for Presidents. It was scheduled to announce the new nominee for Secretary of Labor, Alexander Acosta. Acosta himself was not present but it's a safe bet that he should easily make it through the nomination process based on a cursory examination of his record and the fact that he has been approved by the Senate on three other occasions. Trump made that brief announcement and then began the press conference with an opening statement about how great he is and how horrible the mess is that he has inherited. If you didn't see it, please watch it in it's entirety. Don't just catch a snippet or two and listen to your favorite media outlets discuss it. I know it's hard but you need to do it. Whether or not you like him or not you must admire his consistency as one of our greatest illusionists on the scene t...

If you blog, you're familiar with that phrase. It's a part of the behind the scenes information all bloggers track. I learned from my first blog to not allow any comment to automatically post without my prior approval, not to stop opposing views, but to filter out inappropriate drive by hits and babbling about things unrelated to the specific post. There are rarely comments left on this blog so it hasn't been a hectic reviewing process. But something strange has occurred in the stats section which tells me how many people have visited the blog. Today a very large number of people supposedly read my little plop. Here's the rub, this happened about a week and half ago with a day of large numbers of views, exciting, except when I checked back a day later, those numbers were gone and it showed zero for that day. I will of course be checking on today's abnormally high number. Exactly what is occurring I don't know. Is it a glitch or something else? Frequently the po...

Last weekend President Trump issued an Executive Order banning travel to the United States from seven majority Muslim nations. The media and opponents have called it a Muslim ban. It's easy to understand why that is. Trump's own campaign rhetoric calling for a Muslim ban and his use of the word "ban" last weekend in his usual word salad speaking style have fed the notion. However, the order itself doesn't say this. It is a pause on refugees and citizens of those countries entering the United States until "we" evaluate the vetting process for those visitors. As a democratic Republic it was handled sloppily and incompetently, as an authoritarian state it would be considered business as usual and there is the problem, well, one of them. Note carefully that because of the backlash in our country, the Trump Administration and key Republicans have gone out of their way to point out that the seven countries in question are the ones that were identified by the ...

President Donald Trump is a pompous ass and represents a grave threat to the Republic, accept that truth and keep alert. That said, under my own code of ethics even a pompous ass deserves defense when merited. The firing of Acting Attorney General Sally Yates was justified. I would have done the same thing, though I would have handled it far more diplomatically. The reason it's justified and not a Nixonian moment is because the Office of Legal Counsel in the A.G.'s office had reviewed the travel ban and stated it was legal. Whether or not they are correct is for the Courts to decide. Yates made a decision that she did not agree with the policy and issued an order to her subordinates that the Justice Department would not defend the order in court. She did not issue a legal brief outlining why the O.L.C. was wrong in their assessment and present it to the President. She simply issued her order, after the Justice Department had already appeared in court over the weekend defending ...

For the many reasons that I've enumerated in previous posts my Facebook page has now been deactivated. I may at some point create a non interactive kanesrealm page but I haven't made that decision. I don't know how many people receive my commentaries via e-mail that may also have been a Facebook friend but now you have an explanation of what happened. You are free to share my posts on all social media platforms, including Facebook. By deactivating the account I'll be able to take a break from that platform and stop wasting so much time on it, to no avail. Time is the one war in which no human being can prevail and the clock is rapidly ticking for me. I have no plans to stop writing the blog and I'm sure Trumplestiltskin will give me a lot of material to work with, if I can keep up with his lies and various delusions. But I also intend to refocus my energy, such as it is, to my other writing interests before it's too late. If you were a friend on Facebook, I...

Kellyanne Conway nay Goebbels, Trump's pollster, third campaign manager and now Presidential Senior Advisor has made it crystal clear that the chronic lying of her boss throughout his entire campaign and her smiling facilitation of said lies is now the official stance of the Office of the Presidency. Ms. Conway appeared on Meet the Press this past Sunday where she defended the irrational screeching statements made by Press Secretary Sean Spicer about how YUGE the crowds were at Trump's inauguration. Conway was called out for the lies and she casually tossed it aside saying he used alternative facts. Alternative facts are lies, but not so according to Conway. Kellyanne Conway nay Goebbels has been smiling and lying to the American people from the moment she joined Team Trump as a surrogate and she gets away with it because she's a charming monotone woman that never stops smiling while spewing the propaganda of her master. All of these believers in God, predominantly Christ...

Only one person on the planet will get the complete meaning of the title of this commentary, he frequently has referred over the long years to my wearing of the dickhat, which means idiots piss me off and I show it. Today I abruptly left Facebook, oh yeah, I did. My page is still there but I'm not. Last week I purged my cellphone of the app and returned it to the factory setting and disabled said installed basic function. Can you believe that shit? Facebook is already jacked in when you get your phone, you can't wipe it out. I know a lot of people love Facebook, I don't and yet I have become hooked on repeatedly checking it on a daily basis and for what? I ask you, for fucking what? I created an account in July of 2016 and simultaneously created a Twitter account. I did these two things for one reason, to promote this blog. I had never been on Facebook and maintained I never would because of my belief it's a giant fake waste of time and in spite of it's top rankin...

Donald J. Trump is now the 45th President of the United States and make no mistake in your thought process, his Presidency is legitimate. True, he won because our electoral system failed but that does not change the facts. The Russians did not steal our election, Americans are responsible for the outcome. No evidence of any kind has been suggested or proved that a foreign power directly placed their hands on our voting machines and changed votes to guarantee Trump a victory in the Electoral College. If you feel the need to assign blame, put it on F.B.I. Director James Comey, who went out of his way, in contradiction of Bureau protocols, to smear Hillary Clinton with false innuendo. First in the early summer of 2016 and again two weeks prior to the General Election. Blame the Democratic Party as a whole for believing, like the Republicans, that Donald Trump was not a serious threat to them. Blame the hundreds of millions of Facebook users who love to share lies over and over again. Blam...

Some of you may think my previous post was a bit harsh, not so. In fact I pulled my punch out of regard for my more sensitive readers. Let's go deeper, shall we. I never drank the Obama Kool-aid, in reality I drink no politicians Kool-aid. I view them all with a healthy skepticism and then hope that they might live up to their rhetoric and rise to statesman like decorum. They rarely do and Barack Obama is no exception. When Obama originally announced he was running for the Democratic nomination for President I wrote that maybe in the future when he had seasoning and an established national record but not now. No sooner had he been elected to the U.S. Senate then bam, he's running for President. He had no record of substance and his brief time in the Senate was less than stellar. I was not impressed by him. Throughout the campaign and debates, the one candidate who stood out and distinguished himself was Joe Biden but the media wasn't interested in old Joe, nice guy but th...

Here's one to piss everybody off. Enjoy! Last night Barack Obama delivered his farewell address in Trump style with a big venue in Chicago with 20,000 people in attendance. I was moved only by my need to adjust my chair. I have struggled for years to figure out what it is about Barack Obama I find so uninspiring and now I know. He is like the promise of a great song. The first few bars are catchy and the last note tricks you into believing it was good but everything in between is shit. Last night it was breaking news that a two page unsubstantiated addendum was added to the classified hacking briefing given to the President and President Elect that Russia had compromising information on Donald Trump. By this morning holes the size of the moon had been shot in this story and many news organizations had refused to run with it because it was questionable. What does this so called document show? That Trump fucked a goat? Even if he did, who cares, it gets cold in Russia. Trump is ...

Donald Trump received his briefing on Russia's hacking activity from the big four intel officials of the United States. Trump said it was "constructive" and "he likes these guys", but, yes there's a but, "it didn't effect the outcome of the election". Further, Trump continues to basically not believe any of it and continues to be an advocate of Vladimir Putin. First let's state the obvious, the anger that all Americans should feel is over a foreign power deliberately attempting to interfere in our elections and the failure of the man about to become President not condemning it and calling out the actors responsible. Donald Trump is such an insecure person that the only thing he can focus on is the suggestion his Presidency is illegitimate even though that suggestion hasn't been made by anyone in government. You could certainly state as fact that Donald Trump spent eight years trying to delegitimize the Presidency of Barack Obama, you ...

President-elect Donald J. Trump is blaming the dishonest media for portraying him as pro Julian Assange and anti U.S. intelligence officials over the Russian hacking incidents surrounding American elections. As proof for their reporting, the media used Trump's own words and Tweets, thus proving he is an unreliable source. Again, breaking news, Donald Trump has disavowed the reliability of his own words. Tomorrow Trump will receive his official intel briefing on the Russian hacking allegations. It is the same briefing President Obama received today and is in prelude to the release of a report to the American people. The meeting was always scheduled for this Friday but Trump said it was to be held on Wednesday and Tweeted that the intelligence officials had pushed it to Friday so they could probably create fictitious information, not his word but most certainly his meaning. But after today's revelation from Trump himself as being an unreliable news source, we can dismiss this a...

Donald Trump knows things that nobody else knows about the Russian hacking of the D.N.C. and meddling in our Presidential election. Trump understands hacking and the Russians are not guilty. Trump knows more than the President of the United States, all of his intelligence agencies and federal entities combined. Thank goodness for Donald Trump and he's going to tell us everything he knows about this matter on Tuesday or Wednesday of this week. Oh wait, this is Wednesday and it's almost over and no disclosures have been made by Trump. Trump is praising Julian Assange and Wikileaks, a man Trump once described as disgraceful. But hey, Julian's okay right now because he was helpful to Trump and he is saying uncategorically that the Russians did not provide Wikileaks with any hacked information, alright Julian, settle down. If you're a fan of Assange that's your prerogative but remember that all of his original partners, the ones that actually built the Wikileaks platfo...

The new session of Congress officially began yesterday. The super duper amped up Republican control of all branches of government is at hand and up first in the House on the night of January 2, while no one was watching a group of Republican delinquents moved to get rid of the Independent House Ethics Commission. Speaker Ryan and Majority Leader McCarthy didn't want this to happen but they were ignored which tells you they have no power over their own caucus. But the public was watching and reached out in rage bombarding Congress with phone calls. Even Donald Trump tweeted his displeasure that they had chosen this as their first act. To be clear, Trump doesn't mind them getting rid of the ethics commission, he just feels they should wait, (read the tweet.) So down the drain went this first initiative. So what to do? Oh yes, the chestnut, the official introduction of the Bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act. If you read regularly you're about to experience dejavu, get u...

No doubt you're sitting in your spinning chair, your fingers rapidly tapping the arms with  piston precision, frequently checking your e-mail and my delightful non-graphic blog site and wondering, "where is Kane?" Well, Mr. Kane is right where he has always been, trapped in darkness and tortured by demons, but enough about my love life. There is a lot of political matters to write about and yet nothing to write about. We have eighteen days to go before Donald J. Trump becomes President of the United States. Speculating on what is about to happen is quite pointless but his Cabinet nominees give some indication of the overall tone of the incoming administration. All very rich with a few poor millionaires thrown in for good measure. All with a philosophy from earlier times in history when the nobles of the land ruled while the rest of us toiled in the field and said yes my Lord. Trump speaks endlessly about deregulation but it won't be about making the opening of a smal...